Air to Air Video

[Group Leader 0]

After literally years of messing about, sorry I meant to say painstaking work, here is a video of the latest results from my attempts at R/C air to air video. The subject is a rather nice Lancaster bomber belonging to a friend.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=9RhBxrtSb6w

It was taken from a 1/4 scale Sopwith Pup using my Mk 3 PupCam system which is described on this build thread

http://www.rcmf.co.uk/4um/index.php?topic=38640.0

At last it seems to be coming along quite nicely, but the logistics of a flying session are just horrendous! Two pilots, one camera operator, one aircraft tracker, all the kit and so many batteries to charge!

Edited September 26, 2007 by Group Leader

[Terry 5]

Very well done, I know how hard it is.

Just a couple of comments though, could you add sound effects and/or music ? it would realy brighten up your video.

Also it would be great to see the lanc from another ww2 warbird, I know it's not that easy but looking out from the waist gunners position on a B17 or whatever would be great.

Is there any way to smooth the pan and tilt movement ?

But I will say again, very well done !

Terry

[Group Leader 0]

You're right Terry, it is an unusual formation! There are plans a foot for some more likely combinations but looks like the weather might mean they take a while to come together.

WRT the smoothness of the pan & tilt. I think it could really do with some sort of soft start to slow the initial movement. Don't want to just slow it down all the time as rapid movement is important when sweeping from one end to the other. Maybe the use of negative exponential on the controller might give the same effect (at least when in the centre of the travel)

Edited September 27, 2007 by Group Leader

[Doofer 0]

Great stuff! You should be very pleased. My initial efforts at air-to-air used a fixed camera - one hour of video showed the other aircraft in four frames

It sounds as if your cameraman is controlling with knobs, rather than a head-tracker. I'd recommend the latter, both for the more organic feel of the movements, and the speed of response which is so crucial when the aircraft get close.